#cathy watches the witcher

[maulthots]

Witcher season 4 wishlist: 1) a Gwent tournament just like casino royale, lots of meaningful eye contact across the table, cbt optional but encouraged. 2) a dissection. 3) for them to say superior swallow out loud one time.

[blackwidownat2814]

Pairing: Tyler Owens x female reader, Tyler Owens x shy!reader, Tyler Owens x insecure!reader

Word Count: 1408

Summary: You begin your new job as a Tornado Wrangler (remotely), and meet most of the team. It isn't until you suffer a little mishap that you meet the man himself.

A/N: Thank you all so much for the wonderful response to the Prologue!!! I didn't think it'd be that much of a hit, so I was surprised with all the love. After finishing this chapter, I feel like it could've been part of the Prologue, but oh well. It's been a while since I've written as well, so bear with me. As always, thanks to my awesome beta, @buckysdollforlife, for their help with this and for creating the header for this story (I LOVE IT!!!!) and bestie, @13braincellsonly, for allowing me the use of their son's name and personality when I needed to come up with a horse. **All descriptions of Ziggy the horse were approved by his momma.** And as always, I will be cross-posting this to AO3. If you see this story anywhere besides AO3 or Tumblr, it's stolen.

City Girl Knows Her Stuff

You became a Wrangler near the end of the season that first year.  Kate picked you up at the airport with two members of the team: Lily and Dani.  Lily immediately pulled you into a hug, chatting a mile a minute about how excited she was to have you on the team.  Dani (perhaps picking up on your shyness) offered a handshake and big smile, welcoming you to Oklahoma.  Kate was more than happy to let Dani and Lily talk your ear off on the drive to Sapulpa, where you’d be staying with Cathy until you found a place.  She knew it was somewhat difficult for you to make friends, so she was happy to see you enjoying a conversation with two new friends.

You got to meet Dexter when he came by in the van to pick up Lily and Dani.  You thought he was funny and enjoyed some very science-centric conversations with him.  Before they all left, Lily let you take her drone for a spin.  You enjoyed it so much that for your birthday later that year, she gifted you a smaller drone that wasn’t quite like hers, but it had a small camera and small, tinny sounding speaker.  She even had it painted in your favorite color.  That would become one of your absolute favorite gifts.  It made you cry.

Like most storm chasers, you had to have a job in the off season, so you got a remote data analyst job with the NOAA offices in Norman and moved out to a place just out of Sapulpa.  This would allow you to visit Cathy at the farm and work on data in the barn workshop the Wranglers had set up.  You even got yourself a cat.  Abandoned due to his looks and runt status (according to the shelter), you snatched him up the first time you saw him.  Black cats didn’t scare you.  Life with Roach (you’d spent quite a bit of time watching The Witcher) was idyllic and you were happy.

By the time you met Boone, the Wranglers felt like family…and Boone felt like the brother you never had.  Like Boone, you were an only child and didn’t have much of an extended family and it was a bit lonely in the beginning.  The difference, however, was that Boone was an outgoing guy and it was easy for him to make friends and talk to people he didn’t know, whereas that scared you half to death most of the time.  You loved his boisterous way of being, but you also appreciated that he (like Dani) could tell when your social battery had run down and turned it down and would sometimes sit with you in a quiet environment.  Sometimes he’d sit and nap while you read or he’d pick up the latest meteorological article (or sometimes the latest comic he picked up at the shop).  He didn’t even make fun of your nickname like others had before, so you trusted him.

The day of Cathy’s pre-tornado season bbq, while cleaning some dishes, you confessed to Boone that you were nervous about meeting the head tornado wrangler himself, Tyler Owens.

“T’s a sweetheart B, you got nothin’ to worry about.  Why are ya nervous?”

“Boone!  He doesn’t know me, what if he doesn’t think I’m a right fit for the team?  What if he doesn’t like how I do work?  Y’all are famous ‘round here, what if he gets irked by the fact that big crowds make me nervous and it takes me forever to become comfortable with people?  You know it’s not easy for me to talk to people I’ve never talked to before”, you cried in exasperation.

“B, imma need you to take a breath, okay?” Boone reassured you as he placed his hands on your shoulders.  “If Ty thought any of those things, I would definitely not be workin’ with ‘em.”

You were so busy trying to get yourself to relax that you missed Kate wandering into the kitchen.

“B, are you freakin’ out about meetin’ Tyler again?” she asked.  You and Boone nodded.  “Well, you don’t have to worry.  He won’t be able to come today, said he had to drive down to Texas to see his parents.”

You breathed out a sigh of relief, sending some of your hair floating up.  “Good, I have time to relax about it.  Thanks Kate.”

“Thank Tyler’s parents.”

“Thank you, Mr. & Mrs. Owens!” you said to no one in particular and dried your hands, as you looked over at your friends.  “See you two out there!”

Kate and Boone followed, but stayed on the porch, both taking twin sips from their beers.

“You think either of them has any idea what’s about to happen to ‘em?” Boone asked.

“Meaning that Tyler is going to become enamored the second she opens her mouth?”

“Yup.”

“And that she’s going to have the same thing happen to her the second she comes into contact with that cocky cowboy swagger that he exudes when you meet him the first time?”

“Yup.”

“No, I don’t think either of ‘em knows what’s coming.”

A few days before the chasing season began, you brought Roach down to Cathy’s, where he would be staying while you were out with the Wranglers for your first season on the road.  

While there, you asked Cathy if you could saddle up your favorite of her horses, Zig, nicknamed Ziggy.  He wasn’t the brightest of the bunch; he was the type of horse you’d see in a video because someone thought he was dead but in actuality, he was just sleeping.  You swore that his mother, a horse named KJ, rolled her horse eyes every time someone caught him playing dead.

Ziggy may not have been the sharpest pitchfork in the barn, and may not have enjoyed doing much of anything besides looking dead when he slept, but he enjoyed riding through fields with you.  He knew whenever he saw you approaching with a bowl that he was about to get one of his favorite snacks: ice cubes with apple bits in them.  You put Ziggy’s snack bucket down so he could munch while you brushed him and got him saddled and ready to go for a ride.

When Ziggy let you know that he was done with his snack, you popped in your earbuds and shuffled your favorite classical music playlist on Spotify.  You found it was one of your favorite ways to relax.  After you climbed on Ziggy’s back, and kicked him into gear, you took off for the open fields near the road leading up to the farm.

You’d been out there for a while when you started hearing the faint rumble of an engine, but ignored it because trucks passed near this area all the time.  You probably shouldn’t have ignored it though, because when that modified-to-withstand-tornadoes red Dodge Ram 3500 turned on to the road and took off towards the main house, Ziggy took off after it.  By now, you shouldn’t have been surprised that he recognized the truck or the person in it, but you were…and because you were so thrown off by it, your hands (stupidly) had not been holding the reins.  And because you had not held on, you went flying off Ziggy’s back while he just followed the familiar truck.  Lucky for you, the fall didn’t cause you to go unconscious, but it did knock the wind out of you after you landed hard on your back.

As you attempted to take deep breaths, you heard someone yelling and running towards you, so you tried to sit up.  The voice yelled for you to not move, so you listened and stayed on the ground, with your eyes shut.  You just lay there, waiting.

All of a sudden:

“Are you okay?” the voice asked.  You knew that you knew who the voice belonged to but you were so thrown by being thrown that your brain wasn’t focusing.  You blinked your eyes open, and your vision swam before focusing on the most beautiful face.

“Wha-”

“Are you okay, darlin’?” he asked as he helped you sit up.

“Uh…”

“Did you black out?”

“No.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Cathy’s farm, in Sapulpa.”

“Do you know your name?”  He smiled when you told him.  “Where’d you come in from?”

“New York City.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m the new data analyst for the Wranglers.”

“Well…looks like we got another city girl that knows her stuff.”

Tagging: @ladybirdbeetle7 @omgbrianab @itsdesiree86 @avengersfan25 @keyrani @thedonswife13 @lonelyghosts-stuff

DON'T FORGET TO LIKE AND REBLOG!!!!

Main Masterlist

[wulfhalls]

You're full of surprises, you beautiful creature. What other pairings do you ship apart from Daemyra and Jonsa?

otp otps

hannigram - hannibal, chuck x blair - gossip girl, catherine x peter - the great, spirk - star trek, cesare x lucrezia - the borgias, (daemyra and jonsa are also up here lmao)

other pairings I'm into

kastle - the punisher/ daredevil (fuck marvel but the dynamic was too bomb to miss out on so I only watched their scenes exclusively lmao) yennskier - the witcher (if they don't kiss next season I have to blow up netflix unfortunately) kenstew - succession (they have explored each others bodies in the past and will do so again), arthur x eames - inception (the ogs nothing is ever gonna hit like 2014 inception fic livejournal gyzym the only writer EVER) seonho x yeon - my country the new age (ITS THE DEVOTION OF IT ALL) joowon x dongski - beyond evil (its licherally just kdrama hannigram with more daddy issues), gaius x number six (the sexiest bitches who ever caused the destruction of humanity u simply had to be there) , mulder x scully (watching all seasons over a 3 month period when I was like 19 changed my brain chemistry), kaz x inej - shadow and bone (and if I'm a basic bitch at heart then what) dan x amy - veep (will hunt david mandell for sport on day for what he did to them and us <3)

book otps

richanne - the sunne in splendour ( best book best pairing best everything) cathy x heathcliff - wuthering heights (goes insane) leto x ghanima - children of dune (He runs and runs and runs. And when he's exhausted himself, he returns to me, puts his head in my lap and asks me to help him find a way to die. like?????????????????? fucking insane)

[wellhalesbells]

✨✨ TOP FIVES FOR 2020 ✨✨

2020 was, i think we can all agree, a massively chaotic year but i have never consumed as much media before in my life, so i thought others might benefit from my slothery uh, connoisseur.... ship?  yes, that.  below are the books, comics, shows, and movies that got me through!

B O O K S .

the starless sea, by erin morgenstern - i loooove this book because it loves me back.  it says: ‘oh, you’re a reader, well i have just the thing for you.’  it luxuriates in language and story and riddles and fairy tales and it feels like an entire library in a single tome.

they never learn, by layne fargo - oh fuuuuuck, this was satisfying.  i thought it might feel a little exploitative as it is very aware of the zeitgeist and likely would not exist without the #metoo movement but it never ever did.  this was a fucking ROMP, period.  reading about a woman getting away with murdering skeezy guy after rapey guy after shitty human just made me happier and happier.

moonflower murders, by anthony horowitz - this is the second in the susan ryeland series (and the first was hardcore good fun too) and really feels very classic mystery with the artful twist of catering to the literary community.  mainly because: susan isn’t a detective, she’s an editor and she gets drafted in this time because the clue to what happened to a missing woman is in a book she edited, if she can find it.  both of the books in this series have such an excellent coming together moment that is rare af to find.

the invisible life of addie larue, by v.e. schwab - the writing in this is just so good.  it has that feel to me where i just want to drop the book and open up my own page and let my fingers fly.  it’s that inspiring kind of writing that reminds you of all the things language can do.

crown of feathers/heart of flames, by nicki pau preto - aaahhh, this series is SO FREAKING GOOD!  why is there not more of a fandom for it, why???? it is so many of my favorite tropes all resting perfectly together to the point where you almost forget they’re tropes because they just so naturally evolved there.  ugh, it’s just.... it’s so heart-bursty good.

.... number 5, part 2?  raybearer, by jordan ifueko - this was just so original and i was invested af.  like, what a brilliant idea though and an even better execution??  i loved every character and am so looking forward to the next in the series so i can get to know them even better!!

honorable mentions (sh*t i still liked a whole heckuva lot): you/hidden bodies, by caroline kepnes // writers & lovers, by lily king // i’ll be gone in the dark, by michelle mcnamara // the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home, by joseph fink & jeffrey cranor // girl, serpent, thorn, by melissa bashardoust // a little life, by hanya yanagihara // the guinevere deception, by kiersten white // obsidio (and the entire illuminae series), by amie kaufman & jay kristoff // the bone houses, by emily lloyd-jones // house of salt and sorrows, by erin a. craig // we hunt the flame, by hafsah faizal // savage legion, by matt wallace // blacktop wasteland, by s.a. cosby // crier’s war, by nina varela // the empress of salt and fortune/when the tiger came down the mountain, by nghi vo // upright women wanted, by sarah gailey // the monster of elendhaven, by jennifer giesbrecht // a deadly education, by naomi novik // you let me in, by camilla bruce // when you ask me where i’m going, by jasmin kaur // the lights go out in lychford/last stand in lychford (and the entire lychford series), by paul cornell // the devil and the dark water, by stuart turton // serpent & dove, by shelby mahurin // one by one, by ruth ware // ruthless gods (this was SUCH an upshot from the first book - it’s worth sticking with if you’re on the fence), by emily a. duncan // cemetery boys, by aiden thomas // the inheritance games, by jennifer lynn barnes // the fortunate ones (2021 release), by ed tarkington

C O M I C S .

cosmoknights, by hannah templer - the art was gorgeous, the gayness was glorious, and just.... hot HOOOOOOOOT lady knights in space?!  a princess winning her own hand?  find something not to love in there, i dare you.

don’t go without me, by rosemary valero-o’connell - wow. wow wow wow wow wow.  the writing was stunning, so lyrical and atmospheric and deep, and rosemary has to be one of my favorite artists but even that managed to come as a beautiful surprise because it was just so freaking bold.

through the woods, by emily carroll - i loooove emily carroll, the convergence of spine-tingling horror and art that feeds into it, that is both visually and aesthetically pleasing, is hard to beat!  p.s. i also read beneath the dead oak tree from her this year and it was also a BANGER.

the impending blindness of billie scott, by zoe thorogood - zoe is someone that i just want to follow.  she’s just starting and i want to be there for every single step.  i love her art style and her ability to tell a story with it.

above the clouds, by melissa pagluica - this was so unique, and such a baller concept, as nearly half the entire book is conveyed only through the art and yet you’re never once lost, never once confused as to what any character is thinking or feeling.  it’s a story within a story and only one of those gets words though they both are chock full of emotion!

um.... number 5, part 2? crowded, by christopher sebela - everything about this series is fun af.  crowd-funded assassination and a hirable bodyguard who’s rated like an uber driver???  and the chemistry between the two mains is so great and gay!!

honorable mentions: monster and the beast, by renji // long exposure, by kam ‘mars’ heyward // fence, by c.s. pacat // invisible kingdom, by g. willow wilson // ms. marvel, by g. willow wilson // heathen, by natasha alterici // not drunk enough, by tess stone // giant days, by john allison // die, by kieron gillen // be prepared, by vera brosgol // ascender (sequel to descender, which is also great), by jeff lemire // the unbeatable squirrel girl, by ryan north // bang! bang! boom!, by melanie schoen // gideon falls, by jeff lemire // life of melody, by mari costa // cry wolf girl, by ariel slamet ries // the tea dragon society, by katie o’neill // ptsd, by guillaume singelin // heartstopper, by alice oseman // solutions and other problems, by allie brosh // finding home, by hari conner // the magic fish, by trung le nguyen // something is killing the children, by james tynion iv // the weight of them, by noelle stevenson // spill zone, by scott westerfeld // skyward, by joe henderson // miles morales, by saladin ahmed

F I L M S.

parasite, dir. bong joon ho - oh it was satisfying, oh it was suspenseful, oh i had to watch some of it through my fingers but i loooooooved it.  such a good story and so well made.

knives out, dir. rian johnson - okay, everything about this movie was amazing.  every single character was fun as hell and i could’ve watched an entire movie about each of them.  what a great fucking mystery!

blindspotting, dir. carlos lopez estrada -  this made my heart hurt so damn much.  what glorious writing, acting, and story!

portrait of a lady on fire, dir. celine sciamma - gooooorgeous cinematography, amazing chemistry, and such a soft, atmospheric film.

the farewell, dir. lulu wang - i cried and my heart felt so full and i love it so so much.

um.... number 5, part 2? someone great, dir. jennifer kaytin robinson - no part of me expected to love a netflix movie this much but it’s a love story that doesn’t get told that often??  the end of a relationship and the true love of friendship and i love these girls and i love jenny and nate’s broken relationship.

honorable mentions: eighth grade, dir. bo burnham // booksmart, dir. olivia wilde // midsommar, dir. ari aster // the curse of la llorona, dir. michael chaves // the secret life of pets 2, dirs. chris renaud & jonathan del val // jojo rabbit, dir. taika waititi // the invisible man, dir. leigh whannell // the favourite, dir. yorgos lanthimos // can you ever forgive me?, dir. marielle heller // troop zero, dirs. bert & bertie // ready or not, dirs. matt bettinelli-olpin & tyler gillett // brave, dirs. mark andrews & brenda chapman & steve purcell // the half of it, dir. alice wu // palm springs, dir. max barbakow // doctor sleep, dir. mike flanaghan // uncut gems, dirs. benny sadfie & josh sadfie // birds of prey, dir. cathy van // bloodshot, dir. dave wilson // the old guard, dir. gina prince-bythewood // enola holmes, dir. harry bradbeer // hocus pocus, dir. kenny ortega // always be my maybe, dir. nahnatchka khan // finding dory, dirs. andrew stanton & angus maclane // die hard, dir. john mctiernan

S H O W S .

black sails (2014) - this show, this shooooooooow.  i cannot, it just makes me want to cry with how good it is.  the characters, the EMOTIONS, the story, the plaaaaaan.  like, the creators clearly had a plan for every single step of this show and it was a gOOD, GOOD PLAN.

the untamed (2019) - truly, cheesy good fun with one of the best gay romances ever.  i love these characters and their relationships to each other and the way it glories in its own ridiculousness.

the righteous gemstones (2019) - one of the things that bothered me about my next choice (the ratio of female to male nudity) was so much more realistic in this one (i mean, we’ve all gotten five thousand dick pics and i know like three people?  so the fact that there is so rarely male nudity in shows when there are tits everywhere..... no, how does that even make a tiny bit of sense?).  this show was such great, wonderful, awful fun.  they’re not great people and the show is under no delusion about that and it’s GLORIOUS!

the witcher (2019) - this was just hella fun, i loved the characters and the fantasy elements.  i’m excited for the next season, it’s just entertaining swashbuckling through and through!

fargo (2014) - all of this was really very enjoyable with the through line being somebody fucks shit up and gets involved in something they really shouldn’t be involved in that’s going to swallow them whole.  season one and season three were my stand-out favorites but they were all so violent, clever, and vicious!

um.... number 5, part 2? central park (2020) - um..... so many of the hamilton actors in a muscial cartoon drawn and written by the bob’s burgers team? WHAT ABOUT THAT DOESN’T SOUND AMAZING?!  it was such a joy to hear daveed diggs and leslie odom jr.’s voices again!!

honorable mentions: schitt’s creek // the mandalorian // mr. robot // broadchurch // mindhunter // jack ryan // the good place // the end of the f***ing world // big little lies // elite // kidding // servant // letterkenny // curb your enthusiasm // i am not okay with this // ozark // buzzfeed unsolved: true crime/supernatural // you // runaways // dear white people // dickinson // brooklyn nine-nine // will & grace // 9-1-1 // dead to me // solar opposites // never have i ever // killing eve // what we do in the shadows // grace and frankie // avenue 5 // roswell, new mexico // the bold type // evil // tuca & bertie // impulse // the umbrella academy // watchmen // infinity train // corporate // search party // on becoming a god in central florida // a.p. bio // criminal: uk // the morning show // mythic quest // last week tonight // prodigal son // the great

[kalinara]

Please tell me they're joking: "Geralt of Rivia doesn’t feel like humans feel. And by that, I mean he doesn’t really feel. However, Geralt has expressed consistent feelings about 3 characters... Third, Jaskier. No magic, no mutation, no anything. A “humble” bard, and his brooding Witcher. 23 years they were together. 23. Geralt feels things, and it isn’t because of magic. He’s just gay for Jaskier." Not the whole thing since it won't fit, but there are even dumber takes on Yennefer and Renfri.

Yeah, that’s the sort of argument I find very frustrating.

I can’t speak for book or game canon, but the SHOW makes it very clear, over and over again, that the line about Witchers not feeling anything is complete and utter bullshit.

I mean, from Geralt’s OWN WORDS:

Yennefer: They say witchers can't feel human emotion.

Geralt: They say whatever justifies despising our kind.

(Rare Species)

Geralt is an OPEN BOOK.  He doesn’t TALK much, admittedly.  Not after the first episode at any rate, where he’s comparatively a Chatty Cathy.  But every expression is very open and visible on his face.

Let’s look at the first episode, for example, because this is an episode that took place long before Geralt ever met Jaskier.  (Interestingly, according to the timeline, Jaskier would have been about nine years old.)

From the very beginning, we see his weary resignation when he’s challenged in the bar.  We see his caution when Renfri (seemingly just a barmaid) makes conversation.  We see his amusement at Marilka, his disgust of Stregobor.

We watch his instant connection when he knows who Renfri is.  We see how the idea of someone labelled a monster through no fault of their own, until they eventually live up to the label hits him very close to home.  We see his tentative romantic overture.  

Look at his face when Renfri says that silver works on her.  When he snarls “SILVER is for MONSTERS”, and tell me that he doesn’t feel recognizable human emotions.

And that’s just one episode.  That’s not even getting into the walking wound he is in the Striga episode, or his instant enthrallment with Yennefer in Bottled Appetites.  The compassion that has him stop to help a merchant who almost got eaten because he wanted to bury the dead.

Geralt tells us, in his own words, that he feels human emotion.  Geralt shows us, through consistent actions, that he feels human emotion.  

I do think Jaskier is good for Geralt.  Like Marilka, Jaskier is a representation of normal humanity who doesn’t immediately fear him.  Jaskier is warm and vibrant and a contrast to the vast majority of people he knows.

But Jaskier is not the be all and end all of Geralt’s emotions.  And to pretend otherwise does Geralt a great disservice.

I’m rather glad I didn’t see the takes on Yennefer or Renfri.

[oleworm]

I was tagged by @cymatile a long time ago. Hello! :D

Rules: Tag people you’d like to get to know better.

Top 3 ships: I haven’t been in fandom lately, but I recently finished Netlix’s The Witcher and Yennefer and Tissaia would have made such a good couple! Especially after the last episode, where it’s not only shown but they actually admit how important they are to each other. I don’t believe this is going to end well, much less how I’d like it to, but let me imagine.

After having been involved in The Terror fandom for some time, I still have a soft spot for Hickey and Irving but I don’t actively think about them.

Last song: Satyagraha: Act III: Evening Song, composed by Philip Glass and performed by the New York City Opera Orchestra.

Last movie: @cymatile listed Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), dir. by Cathy Yan, and it happens to be the last film that I watched at the cinema! How time flies. If this is the last film that I ever watch at a cinema, I am satisfied.

Let me remember the last proper film that I saw. (Last was a documentary on YouTube about animal houses). Hmm.... Lately I’ve been watching lots of animal documentaries, but my favourite has to be Mucky Secrets.

Mucky Secrets: the Marine Creatures of the Lembeh Strait has amazing footage of less well-known marine fauna and is free to watch on YouTube. It’s an hour and a half long but you’ll wish there were more of it.

Reading: General Chemistry from Wikibooks and Primrose McConnell’s The Agricultural Notebook, 18th ed. by Halley & Soffe. These titles are related. I started with the first one to understand the contents of the second because I wasn’t getting anywhere looking up individual definitions.

What food are you craving right now: Greasy foods that we can’t make at home like fire-roasted chicken with fries, or my guilty pleasure, chain store pizza.

Tagging: @bacchanalium, @graduatedpillowmonster, @bemony, @existencenomad, @rorismane, @strigops, @margalotta, @maggotsandcream? As usual, you don’t have to do it!

[edintheclouds]

Who Needs Charters When You Have Public Schools Like These?

Who Needs Charters When You Have Public Schools Like These?

New York Times, April 1 2017.

David L. Kirp APRIL 1, 2017

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Starting in kindergarten, the students in the Union Public Schools district in Tulsa, Okla., get a state-of-the-art education in science, technology, engineering and math. CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times

TULSA, Okla. — The class assignment: Design an iPad video game. For the player to win, a cow must cross a two-lane highway, dodging constant traffic. If she makes it, the sound of clapping is heard; if she’s hit by a car, the game says, “Aw.” “Let me show you my notebook where I wrote the algorithm. An algorithm is like a recipe,” Leila, one of the students in the class, explained to the school official who described the scene to me. You might assume these were gifted students at an elite school. Instead they were 7-year-olds, second graders in the Union Public Schools district in the eastern part of Tulsa, Okla., where more than a third of the students are Latino, many of them English language learners, and 70 percent receive free or reduced-price lunch. From kindergarten through high school, they get a state-of-the-art education in science, technology, engineering and math, the STEM subjects. When they’re in high school, these students will design web pages and mobile apps, as well as tackle cybersecurity and artificial intelligence projects. And STEM-for-all is only one of the eye-opening opportunities in this district of around 16,000 students. Betsy DeVos, book your plane ticket now. Ms. DeVos, the new secretary of education, dismisses public schools as too slow-moving and difficult to reform. She’s calling for the expansion of supposedly nimbler charters and vouchers that enable parents to send their children to private or parochial schools. But Union shows what can be achieved when a public school system takes the time to invest in a culture of high expectations, recruit top-flight professionals and develop ties between schools and the community.Continue reading the main story Union has accomplished all this despite operating on a miserly budget. Oklahoma has the dubious distinction of being first in the nation in cutting funds for education, three years running, and Union spends just $7,605 a year in state and local funds on each student. That’s about a third less than the national average; New York State spends three times more. Although contributions from the community modestly augment the budget, a Union teacher with two decades’ experience and a doctorate earns less than $50,000. Her counterpart in Scarsdale, N.Y., earns more than $120,000. “Our motto is: ‘We are here for all the kids,’ ” Cathy Burden, who retired in 2013 after 19 years as superintendent, told me. That’s not just a feel-good slogan. “About a decade ago I called a special principals’ meeting — the schools were closed that day because of an ice storm — and ran down the list of student dropouts, name by name,” she said. “No one knew the story of any kid on that list. It was humiliating — we hadn’t done our job.” It was also a wake-up call. “Since then,” she adds, “we tell the students, ‘We’re going to be the parent who shows you how you can go to college.’ ” Last summer, Kirt Hartzler, the current superintendent, tracked down 64 seniors who had been on track to graduate but dropped out. He persuaded almost all of them to complete their coursework. “Too many educators give up on kids,” he told me. “They think that if an 18-year-old doesn’t have a diploma, he’s got to figure things out for himself. I hate that mind-set.” This individual attention has paid off, as Union has defied the demographic odds. In 2016, the district had a high school graduation rate of 89 percent — 15 percentage points more than in 2007, when the community was wealthier, and 7 percentage points higher than the national average. The school district also realized, as Ms. Burden put it, that “focusing entirely on academics wasn’t enough, especially for poor kids.” Beginning in 2004, Union started revamping its schools into what are generally known as community schools. These schools open early, so parents can drop off their kids on their way to work, and stay open late and during summers. They offer students the cornucopia of activities — art, music, science, sports, tutoring — that middle-class families routinely provide. They operate as neighborhood hubs, providing families with access to a health care clinic in the school or nearby; connecting parents to job-training opportunities; delivering clothing, food, furniture and bikes; and enabling teenage mothers to graduate by offering day care for their infants. Two fifth graders guided me around one of these community schools, Christa McAuliffe Elementary, a sprawling brick building surrounded by acres of athletic fields. It was more than an hour after the school day ended, but the building buzzed, with choir practice, art classes, a soccer club, a student newspaper (the editors interviewed me) and a garden where students were growing corn and radishes. Tony, one of my young guides, performed in a folk dance troupe. The walls were festooned with family photos under a banner that said, “We Are All Family.” This environment reaps big dividends — attendance and test scores have soared in the community schools, while suspensions have plummeted. The district’s investment in science and math has paid off, too. According to Emily Lim, who runs Union’s STEM program, the district felt it was imperative to offer STEM classes to all students, not just those deemed gifted.Photo Students congregate at the start of the Global Gardens after school program at Union Public Schools district’s Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in Oklahoma. CreditAndrea Morales for The New York Times In one class, I watched eighth graders create an orthotic brace for a child with cerebral palsy. The specs: The toe must be able to rise but cannot fall. Using software that’s the industry standard, 20 students came up with designs and then plaster of Paris models of the brace. “It’s not unusual for students struggling in other subjects to find themselves in the STEM classes,” Ms. Lim said. “Teachers are seeing kids who don’t regard themselves as good readers back into reading because they care about the topic.” A fourth grader at Rosa Parks Elementary who had trouble reading and writing, for example, felt like a failure and sometimes vented his frustration with his fists. But he’s thriving in the STEM class. When the class designed vehicles to safely transport an egg, he went further than anybody else by giving his car doors that opened upward, turning it into a little Lamborghini. Such small victories have changed the way he behaves in class, his teacher said — he works harder and acts out much less.

Superintendents and school boards often lust after the quick fix. The average urban school chief lasts around three years, and there’s no shortage of shamans promising to “disrupt” the status quo. The truth is that school systems improve not through flash and dazzle but by linking talented teachers, a challenging curriculum and engaged students. This is Union’s not-so-secret sauce: Start out with an academically solid foundation, then look for ways to keep getting better. Union’s model begins with high-quality prekindergarten, which enrolls almost 80 percent of the 4-year-olds in the district. And it ends at the high school, which combines a collegiate atmosphere — lecture halls, student lounges and a cafeteria with nine food stations that dish up meals like fish tacos and pasta puttanesca — with the one-on-one attention that characterizes the district. Counselors work with the same students throughout high school, and because they know their students well, they can guide them through their next steps. For many, going to community college can be a leap into anonymity, and they flounder — the three-year graduation rate at Tulsa Community College, typical of most urban community colleges, is a miserable 14 percent. But Union’s college-in-high-school initiative enables students to start earning community college credits before they graduate, giving them a leg up. The evidence-based pregnancy-prevention program doesn’t lecture adolescents about chastity. Instead, by demonstrating that they have a real shot at success, it enables them to envision a future in which teenage pregnancy has no part. “None of this happened overnight,” Ms. Burden recalled. “We were very intentional — we started with a prototype program, like community schools, tested it out and gradually expanded it. The model was organic — it grew because it was the right thing to do.” Building relationships between students and teachers also takes time. “The curriculum can wait,” Lisa Witcher, the head of secondary education for Union, told the high school’s faculty last fall. “Chemistry and English will come — during the first week your job is to let your students know you care about them.” That message resonated with Ms. Lim, who left a job at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa School of Community Medicine and took a sizable pay cut to work for Union. “I measure how I’m doing by whether a girl who has been kicked out of her house by her mom’s boyfriend trusts me enough to tell me she needs a place to live,” she told me. “Union says, ‘We can step up and help.’ ” Under the radar, from Union City, N.J., and Montgomery County, Md., to Long Beach and Gardena, Calif., school systems with sizable numbers of students from poor families are doing great work. These ordinary districts took the time they needed to lay the groundwork for extraordinary results. Will Ms. DeVos and her education department appreciate the value of investing in high-quality public education and spread the word about school systems like Union? Or will the choice-and-vouchers ideology upstage the evidence?

David L. Kirp is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute and a contributing opinion writer.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. 

A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 2, 2017, on Page SR2 of the New York edition with the headline: What an Ordinary Public School Can Do. Today's Paper

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Staff dragging on the ground yah yah yah. Yah.

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Do you like my staff

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Still waiting for geralt to enter his slutty era.

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They didn't even CHANGE HIS FACE.....aur my god what on earth

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Knock knock. In Witcher season 3, are they going to do all the like, you know, with emhyr. I just remembered it. I just very strongly remembered it. Knock knock.

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Cannot believe jaskier is fucking radovid. Radovid. RADOVID. I neither like him nor respect him. Sorry.

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Him burning the pic of his wife and keeping the one of his daughter. My eyes are wide open. I see what's up.

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Happy Witcher day!!!! Omg. Wishlist: more critters, more dissections, more eating weird little organs. Superior swallow.

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I did all this pre mourning and for what? For them to put this off for another 18 months or whatever? Disgusting.